


Can I Call You My Love Now?

by InnerSpectrum



Series: Mystrade is Our Division Prompts [51]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Explosives, Facebook: Mystrade is our Division Fic Prompts, Love Letters, Mystrade is our Division FB Fic Prompts, mystrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 04:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20221633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InnerSpectrum/pseuds/InnerSpectrum
Summary: It's been nearly two years since Greg left London and Mycroft for New York City. Nearly eighteen of daily letters that have slowly rebuilt what has been broken between them. Still, both men have dangerous jobs and Greg's about reminded of it.





	Can I Call You My Love Now?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Mystrade is our Division FB Fic Prompts | Twist
> 
> These last few one-shots have turned into something of a continuing story. While each can stand on its own, based on its prompt, if it fits, I will be reordering them around to fit the tale chronologically as needed. This mini series begins at Part 45 with ["Out of Time"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19886461) and continues through here.

The day had begun with bang and a twist.

At half one in the morning his neighbor, Mr. Braxton, banged on his door. The man accidently locked himself out of his flat when he decided to dump trash down the trash chute while in nothing but undies and slippers. The drunk UN translator also somehow managed to literally get his knickers twisted in a bunch as he snagged them on the door latch when he exited the compactor room.

Nice pink and white lacy knickers that were ripped and no longer stayed up to contain the man.

Braxton, who was just sober enough to know not to bang on the door of their other neighbors, Mrs. Jefferson, or Ms. Thompson, still was drunk enough to bang on Greg’s door instead of using the perfectly working door bell. Because he needed both hands to hold the ripped knickers in place, he used his cranium to bang on the door. Each bang followed by what Greg presumed were curses in languages other than English. The banging and yelling woke the unhappy women anyway and in the case of Mrs. Jefferson, her equally less than happy spouse as well. Regrettably, who it did not wake was Svetlana, Braxton’s paramour whom a) Braxton forgot was there, b) was dead to the world in her own inebriation and c) none too happy about her ruined knickers. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, she was fine with being seen in the nude when the emergency locksmith finally opened the door.

When all was said and done, Greg just knew when he got a chance to tell his friends, it would amuse John Watson and likely appall Sherlock Holmes.

_HAH! And I thought drunk Londoners were a twisted bunch._

A few hours, but not much sleep later Greg and his colleague Charlie Kendrick were trying to prevent an entirely different kind of bang and twist.

Greg had spent nearly a half-hour in wait as he entertained his colleague, Charlie Kendrick, with the neighborly tale while they waited for a Prime Minister to finish a business call. They wanted her undivided attention as they told her about the plans to move her to a safe house. While he waited for her to finish her call, Henrietta, one of the Prime Minister’s aides chatted with Zack the head of staff for the house. It amused him that something like having the City’s utility company come by and check a problem as mundane as why the stove does not work happens at all levels of influence. He and Kendrick looked at the dynamic between the two. It was evident the pretty assistant, who could have been a wardrobe double for Anthea in the navy suit and crisp white blouse she wore, was not happy with the apparently new head of staff. There was something off between the two, especially Zack. Greg knew when Kendrick scowled slightly, the man had the same thoughts as he.

Once the prime minister was done with the call Greg spent another twenty minutes explaining to the woman why she needed to leave the domicile. She had taken a very hard stance against the drug trade that had taken root in her country as of late. A country that has been used as a pit stop for transport of international contraband. A stance hard enough that a credible threat to her life was uncovered during an investigation of a cartel.

“Are you sure absolutely about this Mr. Lestrade?”

“We are Madame Prime Minister. This investigation has been going on for a couple of months now and this piece was just revealed. It is no longer a matter of if it will occur, but when. Our sources are credible and think this subterfuge is the more prudent option.” Greg confirmed earnestly.

“I see…” The handsome woman tapped her fingers to her desk for a moment and then nodded. Decision made she quickly rose from her chair. “Let me pack a small bag. It will look like the one I use regularly when I carry my lap top and my lunch and won’t raise suspicions. Henrietta, Spenser and Byron are out back…”

“I’ll get go get them and bring them in.” Henrietta volunteered. “Oh, just remembered - Zack is not back from the grocers. The dogs’ carriers are in the mud room. If one of you don’t mind giving me a hand, we’ll be on our way, faster.”

“Kendrick, assist the Prime Minister in what she needs here while I help Henrietta.” Greg turned to his colleague. 

“Got it.” Kendrick stood to go with her.

The Prime Minister’s brownstone home had a small back yard. Rounding up the two Maltese terriers took very little time, even if the aide nearly face planted when they twisted around her legs. Henrietta took the dogs inside. Spying an ashtray Greg decided to have a smoke and sat at a bench while he waited.

The yard was small, but well maintained. He smiled as he noted the arbor. The precision-cut steel garden arch soared to nearly ten feet. It crowned by an impressive finial and a pair of Demilune garden seats added charm. Still, Greg knew an escape route when he saw one. He could just make out the seams of the door, only because he visually searched for them. From the growth around it, the door had not been opened in a long time other than recent maintenance. 

He also recognized the Desdemona hedge roses. The beautiful white blooms, with a pinkish hue were prolific and what grew in the yard of their townhouse.

_Their townhouse_, he laughed at himself. After so much time spent trying to erase himself from any equation that involved the Mycroft, he had begun to think in plural again. 

He inhaled their fragrant scent. It certainly smelled better than the light but odd smell in the kitchen as they passed through to retrieve the dogs. There was something vaguely familiar about it as well that his mind could not quite grasp, but he let it go.

It was a slight overcast day, one more thing to remind him of home.

_Home. _

Greg inwardly smiled. Nearly two years of living here in New York City, but when he thinks of home his eyes still search for the London skyline that only his heart can see. The things his heart has missed most – the City and the Man.

Greg thought about the letter he received yesterday.

> He had smiled to see it was postmarked from Hong Kong.
> 
> _We have texted. I have called thrice when I knew I was going incommunicado. We have Skyped! _
> 
> _Still, It has been nearly two years since I have lain eyes on you in person. _
> 
> _I close my eyes and reach out my hands and I know exactly where your lips would be. I know where I want them to be, but we have an ocean and two years between us. Yet in an odd way, I feel even closer to you than when you left London if that makes any sense at all._
> 
> _I am grateful that you have given me what you have. I was so unworthy after all I did, or specifically did not do with you._
> 
> _Confession 1: I was there when you boarded that plane. I saw you waiting. With my own heart aching I watched how you looked up for me with such hope every few minutes. I watched how the hope slowly dwindled as your plane slowly boarded. And standing not even two meters from you, hiding behind a support column I watched as that final bit of hope was dashed and you boarded that plane. I know you had hoped that I would have done something outlandish to have stopped the plane, stopped you from leaving me. I had my mobile out, your number at the ready all I had to do was dial._
> 
> _I thought about it. Stopping you on the gangway. Stopping the plane on the tarmac. I thought of calling the plane back._
> 
> _But I did not. _
> 
> _Confession 2:Truthfully, a part of me is grateful I did not. I know now such flamboyancy, while momentarily invigorating, eventually would have been like placing a plaster on a newly severed limb. The damage I did was too great, and I was not ready yet, I would have hurt you again. Some part of me knew that. I wish your leaving was not needed for me to understand how desperately I love you. How much I need you. How much of an arse I was to let it get to the point where you thought I did not love you enough. There was no less painful way for me to learn this lesson. _
> 
> _I am so sorry, you had to suffer through my foolhardiness. I deserved the pain I brought on myself. You never deserved what may ego and carelessness did. _
> 
> _Confession 3: I was the reason the bridge between us was destroyed. I know this. I am an atheist. You know this. But I admit to you that I begged. _
> 
> _I begged for you. _
> 
> _I begged the universe to forgive me and let you give me one more chance. When you did not respond at first, I understood. Even Sherlock, who you’d think with all the wrongs steps he went through with John before they got it right I would have known better - but I digress. Even he warned me you would not want to speak to me in the beginning and you had the right. _
> 
> _Still after months of no response I had become despondent if I ever would. Part of me ready to write every single day until I died, for that would be when I stopped loving you. Part of me wondering if it was a lost cause and should I stop. _
> 
> _That very day I received your first letters. They arrived on the same day. _
> 
> _Let’s just say _someone_ heard my voice later and knew. Oh, he got away with an utterly ridiculous number of goodies that afternoon in my unabridged joy. He is an opportunist I’ll give him that. Though to be fair, I have done the same with him and his love. Yes, I know, I know it's ridiculous the games he and I play. _
> 
> _If my initial letters were stacking the bricks to begin to rebuild that bridge between, then those initial letters you sent were the rebar and each letter written between us since has been more bricks, rebar, and mortar. _
> 
> _I once wondered if I had the right to call you my love anymore. _
> 
> _It's been nearly eighteen months of rebuilding. Is our bridge strong enough to handle such?_
> 
> _Can I call you My Love now?_
> 
> _I love you._
> 
> Greg had read the letter again and opened his Skype. It was three in the morning in London, yet he was not in the least surprised that Mycroft answered immediately. Though the camera dimmed the intensity of the familiar blue eyes that crinkled on the sides, Greg could not help but smile.
> 
> “Greg you’re…”
> 
> Mycroft stopped speaking as Greg pointed to a sheet of stationary he held up with a prewritten message to the camera.
> 
> _Shh! I only have two words to say to you and when I say then you will repeat them. That will be all that is said between us tonight._
> 
> Mycroft's brow furrowed for a moment, then he slowly nodded.
> 
> Greg lowered the paper, took a breath, and then reverently said, “My love.”
> 
> Mycroft’s eyes widened in surprise as his breath caught. It was brief and were Greg not looking at him, he might have missed the slight tremble of those lips he wanted to kiss so badly. It was a gift. He knew Mycroft understood that.
> 
> Mycroft’s long fingers reached out and touched his monitor. It was a caress. Greg returned the gesture. Both hands remained in that position as Mycroft softly repeated the words, his smooth vocals ghosting over them. Greg’s eyes involuntarily closed in the pleasure of it before he closed the Skype.

_What was that?_

Greg frowned slightly, the day was overcast, but there was just enough of the passing sun for his eyes to catch the glint of something and then it was gone. He stubbed out his cigarette and focused his attention in the general direction of where he thought he might have seen something. His eyes searched as he waited for the sun to do its parlor trick and shine a light on whatever it was.

_Look at me seeing and observing, Sherlock._

Whatever it was, turned out to be a thin tube, a thin tube that was almost completely concealed by the foliage. Had Greg not noticed the hidden door first his eyes would not have been in that direction to catch that scant glint of the shiny plastic. He stood and focused on the wire. His eyes searched through the foliage to follow it a sense of the familiar dread sank into him. One end was near the escape door he noticed.

Every instinct in him told him not to touch it as he visually searched through the underbrush of the plants to follow it. Losing sight of it he squinted to search and found it again. He walked along the edged and followed the plastic tubing that was threaded through the vines that climbed the brick wall of the back of the house.

“Zach, it smells like rotten eggs in here, it’s worse than before… Can you have that checked again while we’re gone?” Henrietta’s voice was heard as she ach, the house head of staff. He could tell she approached the rear of the brownstone.

Greg looked up. Though still in shadow, he noted the familiar moves of someone who shook a cigarette out of a pack and then took out a lighter.

“I’m going out back to join Mr. Lestrade for a smo…”

Greg oddly recalled a safety flyer seen by the mailboxes in the foyer of his apartment regarding the smell of…

In rapid succession his eyes flicked to the tube and the back door just as Henrietta stopped to flick the lighter for her cigarette.

Greg startled as his phone buzzed.

“Lestrade.” Before he could completely say his name, Kendrick was speaking…

“I’m hit bad…ambassador down…it’s Zack. Get ou…” 

Greg Lestrade had been an officer with New Scotland Yard for over two decades. Though London remained a city where very few of its citizens were armed, but the few that were had not hold back. He knew gun shots when he heard them even through a mobile phone.

_Oh god, no!_

Henrietta looked to Greg her eyes frozen in a stunned expression, but not from Greg’s outburst. The last expression she would ever have as scarlet circles bloomed on her crisp white blouse.

His work with the major crimes unit in the recent years had given him more than enough experience to know exiting bullet wounds when he saw them crack the glass of the door as her body was thrown against it from the impact.

Greg knew Zack would soon be coming to shoot the remaining witness – him, and the only way out was through the house.

_No, not the only way…_

Greg did not think twice about it; he ran for the escape door.

"NO!"

By the time it registered to him that it was Zack who screamed and why, only then did it solidify in his brain the that the rotten egg smell was an ingredient the utility company added to gas so that it one can smell it when it leaked. The house had been staged to blow.

Greg slammed at the two hidden slide bolts that held the door closed and felt the bullet that hit his side. He felt the heat of the conflagration that bloomed behind him as he dived through the door. He twisted over onto his back in time to see the flames that engulfed Zack running out of the back of the brownstone just as the escape door slammed closed.


End file.
